Netflix’s new show from Mindy Kaling is loosely inspired by the Lakers

A famous basketball franchise in Los Angeles who is struggling to keep up to his game has a new president, and is shaking things.

No, they are not the Lakers or the president of the team and owner Jeannie Buss.

But both were inspirations for the new Netflix comedy “Running Point”, which follows Isla Gordon (Kate Hudson) after her brother took the opportunity to take care of the family business as president of the waves of Los Angeles.

While the program, which debuts on Thursday, is a fictional representation of the striking NBA franchise, its similarities with reality are intentional.

Buss, who has been part of six NBA championships with the Lakers, is the reason why the show came true. The venerated Sports Executive, together with the executive director of special projects of the Lakers, Lisa Rambis, actually launched the premise to Showrunner Mindy Kaling.

The two suggested a project about a “very crazy life being two women who run this professional basketball team … really took off from there,” said Ike Barinholz, who co-created the program with Kaling, David Stassen and Elaine Ko.

The result? A comedy in the workplace of 10 episodes focused on popular sport.

The cast includes Justin Theroux as the brother of Isla Cam Gordon, who took care of the waves when his father died; Drew tarver as the half -brother of Isla, Sandy, who handles all the finances of the team; and Scott MacArthur as the brother of Isla Ness, a former basketball player who is now the general manager of the team.

Buses and Rambis are also executive producers.

Stassan wants to be clear that “Running Point” is not the most precise show ever made about sport. Nothing of the sort.

Although he and Barinholtz are considered NBA fans, particularly the Chicago Bulls, “we did not make each writer (in the staff) pass a trivia test of knowledge of the NBA,” he said.

“We were really excited to have the opportunity to create our own small alternative universe of the NBA, and we wanted to do it because we wanted to add freedom to the characters that are deeply defective without having to worry about disturbing real players,” Barinholtz added. “I think that subtextually, you’ll see what you want to see, but I think we really wanted to build a world where there are some things that have happened in real life.”

He estimates that 80% of the show is based on the family business, while 20% is in court. (Some of them could also be in court: the University of Pepperdine, in the nearby Malibu, has sued Netflix for the violation of copyright, pointing out the presence of the fictional team in the Los Angeles market and noting that their sports teams are also called the waves and use the same uniform colors).

Kaling, a big fan of the Lakers, recently told the official Netflix fans site, Tudum, who loves “writing programs about ambitious women, be it a 15 -year -old girl in the valley [‘Never Have I Ever’] or the president of a basketball team. “

“We wanted to make sure that the public could see themselves in the struggles and triumphs of the characters,” he said.

In addition to the many similarities with buses, the “execution point” reaches a variety of stories that have occurred over the years in the NBA. This includes island that has to control the damage when the team star acts outside the court and deals with a dominant father of a player.

“We leave a love for the NBA and basketball in general, instead of simply” everything is an exact replacement of the Lakers, “said Stassan.

An important topic is whether the character of Isla de Hudson should exchange the team scorer. The story was a reminiscence of what happened this month when the superstar of the Dallas Mavericks, Luka Dončić, was treated to the Lakers in an amazing movement.

Of course, that real -life trade happened long after season one of “Running Point”.



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